The Fractured Bone
by Calendar
Summary: A series of oneshots in 100 words. Seven: at night, Naruto dreams in red.
1. Colors

Title: Colors 

Author: Calendar  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to its creator and publishing companies  
Spoilers: None  
Words: 100  
Summary: He likes the colors.

---

In Sand, there wasn't much color. Everything was made from sand, and so everything was the same pale, bleached yellow: the ground, the buildings, and everyone tended to wear tan clothes.

When he was in Leaf, he saw roses once. In the green, green country, he looked at the roses for an hour and twenty-three minutes

_no one much cared what he did at midnight_

The flower shop sold roses, too. He liked the way they were kept, cluttered in bunches going every which way, in bundles of pink and red and white.

Sand didn't have any roses like that.


	2. Three Years

Title: Three Years

Author: Calendar  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs someone who is not the author of this drabble  
Spoilers: up to Chapter 245  
Words: 100  
Summary: A lot can change in three years.

-

In the course of an entire human life, three years is insignificant. Five years might be significant. Ten years is significant, but three years is not.

And yet... and yet...

At twelve, Sakura found out that intelligence wasn't everything. At twelve, Sakura had to be protected. At twelve, Sakura was weak.

At sixteen, Sakura was a chuunin. At sixteen, Sakura could fight side by side with Naruto. At sixteen, Sakura was stronger than she could have ever imagined.

At twelve, Sakura wanted to be strong. At sixteen, she just wanted to be twelve.

A lot can change in three years.


	3. Mirage

Title: Mirage

Author: Calendar  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs someone who is not the author of this drabble.  
Spoilers: up to Chapter 245  
Words: 100  
Summary: In the end, it wasn't about love. 

o0o

She lost her most important person because of him; watched her best friend turn her back on their friendship just to have him. She should have resented him for that.

In the beginning, it wasn't about love. It was about winning. It was the only way Ino could make losing Sakura worthwhile.

She didn't take into account that she'd regain her best friend anyway, and Sasuke would leave for three endless years.

That in the process of bringing him back, Sakura's team would grow into legends.

In the end, it wasn't about love. It was about not being left behind.


	4. Remedy

Title: Remedy 

Author: Calendar  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: I think I'd have to actually be able to write Japanese to own Naruto.  
Spoilers: None  
Words: 100  
Summary: She knew the best cure for loneliness.

o0o

On his nineteenth birthday, Uchiha Sasuke married Yamanaka Ino. He needed to resurrect his clan, and she was available.

Ino knew he was just using her. She knew she was only his second choice.

She knew that he was lonely, and that she was lonely, and that sometimes the best way to cure loneliness is for two people to be lonely together.

She pushed, and she prodded, and she inserted herself so thoroughly into his life that one day he woke up and realized he didn't want to live without her.

To his surprise, it wasn't such a horrible revelation.


	5. Span

Title: Span 

Author: Calendar  
Rating: G  
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs someone really rich. I'm not rich.  
Spoilers: None.  
Words: 100 Summary: Three's the luckiest number.

o0o

Team 7 doesn't mesh, exactly. They never will; there won't ever be a moment that their chaotic team clicks together in harmonious concert. They are three very different people with three very different goals and three very different outlooks on life. That will never change. They don't really want it to change.

That doesn't mean the three of them aren't absolutely perfect together.

Sakura is… cheerful, fresh, healing--with a grumpy, irritable core.

Naruto is… bright, sunny, bouncy--the highest point to reach.

Sasuke is… cool, dark, quiet--light glimmering against the black.

They fit together, morning, noon and night.


	6. Dreams

Title: Dreams 

Rating: G  
Disclaimer: Not mine.  
Challenge: Make-Believe, for the Naruto100 drabble com on livejournal  
Words: 100  
Summary: She'd close her eyes and see things the way they were supposed to be...

xxx

When Sakura couldn't sleep at night, she'd close her eyes and see things the way they were supposed to be.

Naruto would be playing a practical joke on Kakashi when he wasn't looking. Sasuke would be glaring for all he was worth and stifling smirks when he thought no one was looking. She'd want to give all three of them a good smack, but she'd settle for punching Naruto.

Then she'd open her eyes and see her wish melt away like snow in summer. Naruto was training, Sasuke was a traitor, Kakashi was on a mission and she was alone.


	7. Red

Title: Red 

Author: Calendar  
Rating: PG-13  
Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to its creator and publishing companies.  
Spoilers: None  
Words: 100  
Summary: At night, Naruto dreams in red.

xxx

At night, Naruto dreams in red. Dark, rich and viscous red. Sometimes he is drowning in it and no one can hear his screams.

Most of the time, he is laughing and everyone else is screaming. He hears Sakura's shrieks and Sasuke's howls with a clarity he never achieves in his waking hours.

But worst, worst and rarest of all are the quiet dreams. The dreams which take place after the pain and the noise, because all he can see are fields of red and the broken bodies that lie upon them.

In the morning, Naruto never remembers his dreams.


End file.
